Twenty-six and gay, Shane Polk isn’t having a good year. After blowing out his ankle during an Everglade Eagles football game, he does eight months of rehab in Pittsburgh. Now that rehabilitation is over, Shane returns home to Florida and comes to terms with the fact that he has to get back in the game, which isn’t easy for him.

Summertime along the Gulf Coast for Shane has been better. Not only does he have the hassles of starting a new job with the Eagles, he grows jealous of his best friend, Frankie, who is falling in love with Mr. Right in the Caribbean.

Unfortunately, Shane can’t seem to get a grip on his own love life. Sexy football players come and go, none of whom are worth a long-term relationship. Then he meets Tommy Rawe, a young man with a charming smile. Is Tommy someone special who just might be able to change Shane’s topsy-turvy world for the better?

EXCERPT:Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

The outside world started to melt: one hundred degrees and climbing. The sun baked us alive. An air conditioner hummed, but it didn’t even feel like it. The rooms inside the apartment were scorching, on fire, full of unlimited heat. I imagined Boxer was also hot since the single cotton sheet was nothing but a tangle at his feet.

Tucked in the bedroom’s dim shadows, peeping in on the man, I studied his motionless body: five-ten frame, approximately one hundred and eighty pounds of all muscle, and broad shoulders. He had strands of blond and spiraling hair between his firm pecs, and four abs cut and shaped with muscle. A thin line of blond hair began beneath his navel and traveled down to the cotton rim of his boxer-briefs. The fabric outlined his four inches -- I only estimated this at the time -- of soft dick. He had meaty thighs, hairless legs, and size-nine feet. The man was on his back with his toes pointing at the semi-illuminated ceiling. His gym-built chest rose and fell as he slept. His nipples looked sharp, steel-like structures that also pointed to the ceiling. Caught by his handsomeness, I studied his nicely sculpted abs again, counting in my mind: one, two, three, four.

Enough. I left him to his sleep, realizing that he was going to be fine. He was alive and had made it through the night. Good for him. And good for me.

* * * *

“My name is Shane. Shane Polk.”

It was the second time I had told him who I was, which convinced me that he was groggy, unsure of his whereabouts, and not quite capable of remembering every detail of last night’s events at the Briefs Bar, with and without James Coffler.

“Do you remember your name?”

“Tommy. Tommy Rawe.”

“Nice name.” I sat by his head in a high-backed reading chair that was uncomfortable. I rarely, if ever, used it because I really didn’t like it. “Do you remember who you were with last night?”

He nodded, recapping the night’s unclear events. “I do. The guy’s name was Coffee.”

“Do you mean Coffler?”

“That’s the name. He drugged me with something, but I’m really not sure what it was. Some of my queer friends said that he does that to guys, but I didn’t believe them. They warned me, and I didn’t listen. Coffee has a reputation of drugging dateable men and having his way with them.”

“Coffler,” I corrected him again.

“Coffler,” he repeated, yawning.

“And you went out with him anyway?”

“Like I said, I didn’t believe my friends.”

I absorbed his information, I believed Coffler had a dark side like every man. The man was a piece of top-notch shit, in my opinion; a crazy asshole because of his sexual antics. Someone needed to confront him about his ludicrous behavior, or do the same thing to him as he had done with the city’s men.

I don’t know why I moved a hand to Tommy’s forehead and pushed it through his blond hair, which was soft, thick, and rather smooth. I had always enjoyed a man’s head of hair, although bald men, like Coffler, were also attractive.

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” He sat up in the bed, showing off his muscular chest for my pleasure.

“Will eggs, toast, and sausage work?”

“All of the above.”

“I’ll have it ready in a few minutes.” I stood, and started my exit from the bedroom.

“Thanks, Shane,” he called weakly from the bed, probably still exhausted from the drug he had accidentally taken, his night of beer drinking, and other doings of city life that had consequently occurred that maybe neither of us were familiar with at the time.